Mailing lists

The main mailing list is the DOTGNU-GENERAL mailling list.
Subscribe at http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/dotgnu-general.

In addition there is a number of specialized discussion mailing lists. A complete list follows.

Mailing Lists of the DotGNU project

• The DOTGNU-GENERAL mailing list focuses on mainstream DotGNU development work.
• The DOTGNU-PNET mailing list is for development discussions (and bugs) of DotGNU Portable.NET, including e.g. cscc, ilrun, pnetlib, and pnetC. Topics include bugs, feature requests, interoperability testing, newbies looking for work, etc.
• The DOTGNU-LIBJIT mailing list is for libjit library which implements Just-In-Time compilation functionality. Unlike other JIT's, this one is designed to be independent of any particular virtual machine bytecode format or language. The hope is that Free Software projects can get a leg-up on proprietry VM vendors by using this library rather than spending large amounts of time writing their own JIT from scratch.
• The DOTGNU-PNET-COMMITS mailing list is a read-only list for receiving CVS commit messages.
• The PHPGROUPWARE-DEVELOPERS mailing list is for developent discussions of phpGroupWare.
• The DOTGNU-ANNOUNCE mailing list for press releases and other important announcements concerning the DotGNU system.

Please avoid cross-posting to multiple of these lists. If something needs a broader audience than just one of the specialized mailing lists, post it to DEVELOPERS.

Frequently Asked Questions

So far the only "institution" in DotGNU is the DotGNU Steering Committee, which has been appointed by RMS. So right now DotGNU cannot be a democracy in the usual sense, simply because the necessary democratic institutions and procedures have not been established.

It would not be easy to turn a Free Software project like DotGNU into a true democracy. It would have to be a constitutional democracy because there are standards and ethical principles which cannot be allowed to be simply changed by a majority vote. Also the core of the DotGNU vision (which makes it a solution to the vendor lock-in problem for webservices) may be refined, but not discarded. There would need to be structures in place which prevent people who do not agree with these key things from "hijacking" DotGNU. We would need to have a constitution which defines some democratic institutions and their responsibilities, as well as procedures for selecting the members and the leaders of these institutions. Setting this all up in a way that actually works will require a lot of effort, as well as trial-and-error. Doing this here in DotGNU would be a huge distraction, which we cannot afford.

So what DotGNU needs is a simpler structure that will still give us most or all of the benefits of a constitutional democracy. We have established such a structure, as follows:

  1. DotGNU is a volunteer-driven project where everyone is given the
     freedom to work on whatever they consider to be important, and
     what has to do with creating a successful webservices platform
     which is founded on the GNU philosophy.

  2. The DotGNU Steering Committee (which has been appointed by
     Richard Stallman, the founder and leader of the GNU project)
     will, when necessary, serve as "high court" to resolve any
     conflicts between contributors, and it will work to make 
     sure that the project remains faithful to its mission.

  3. Most actual decisions are made in the development projects.
     Each project has a leader who establishes a decision-making
     process.  This does not need to be a democratic process,
     because projects which make bad decisions can be forked.
     (This possibility of forking makes mismanagement much
     less likely to happen, and hence there will probably not
     be a need for many forks.)

  4. Mailing lists have been established for facilitating a free
     flow of discussions on various matters related to DotGNU.
     Use of the lists in ways which harm the DotGNU project will
     not be tolerated.  Here are some examples of behavior which
     will not be tolerated:
     - making FUD-like claims without substantiating them upon request
     - "name calling" and bullying
     - advertising or recommending proprietary software in any way
     - making postings which seem to be illegal according to the
       laws of the country where the mailing list server is located
       (currently the USA).
     People who do such or similar things may be moderated,
     kicked off the list, or banned.  The offending postings may
     be removed from the list's archives.

Your comments please...

You are invited to add your comments concerning this at the appropriate page of the DotGNU Wiki